Congratulations Lindsey and Pat!

An AA-Ha Moment! August 9, our friends got married and we got to cook for the after-party. It was a super-fun backyard party. While preparing for the job, and working the party, we realized that THIS is what we are supposed to be doing. We've each done a gazillion catering jobs for various companies, but when it's your own food and set-up, it's so much better! We prepared the food with love and pride. A co-worker invited me to come cut beautiful flowers from his yard, which I did, and thoroughly enjoyed arranging them in several fun ways. There were really great guests who made us feel that warm fuzzy sense of community.
So now we have a better idea of direction....we need to stay in Washington because this is where we have connections and community. We need to do catering because we know how, we like it, and there's less risk since the food is already paid for. There's also so much room for fun and creativity and combining our many skills to make a profit.
So here is our prayer to the universe...A very small kitchen of our own where we can do small eat-in and take-out, along with catering prep. We would also like to use this kitchen as a community gathering place, think canning or pickling parties, kids cookie parties, jack-o-lantern carving parties. We also need a home where we can grow lots of food, including chickens and rabbits. Ideally very close to where we will work, or longer distance if easily commuted with transit and bike.
So congratulations Lindsey and Pat, Thanks for the best night of work ever, and helping us find our way!

Now that we found Love, what are we gonna do with i-i-i-t?

Here we are, summer at the peak of productivity, our fledgeling business supporting itself, and the markets will end in about 10 weeks. We are spun in every direction trying to figure out what the next smart move should be. The biggest lesson we learned last weekend, was that a mobile kitchen for festivals would NOT be a smart move. Sooo.....
Do we get a storefront to do small-time take-out and catering while we practice small agriculture on a large suburban lot?
Do we go farm a friend's land in Washington wine country and do catering for wineries while we grow food for restaurants and ourselves?
Do we mothball GreenGo Food and go back to working "McJobs" while we figure out what to do in the spring?
I keep talking to friends and acquaintances who share our vision of a farm and sustainable food-based community, several people seem very enthusiastic and even motivated, but enthusiasm doesn't buy land or equipment or seeds.......
We're open to whatever guidance comes our way...

A Painfull Lesson

The Lesson: Average Joe America does not care! Does not care about the atrocities of industrial agriculture, meat processing, environmental devastation, or the list goes on and on..... They just want to feed their faces with greasy, crappy food.
The Teacher: Lake City Pioneer Days. Yup, we were warned, but we thought, "It's our neighborhood, our community, we do well at Lake City Farmer's Market. Our friendly banker said it would be great. It's a calculated risk, which every entrepreneur must be willing to take."
The Loss: Somewhere around $1,000. (Health permit-$226, Stall Fee-$150, Babysitter all day-$120, Help-$45, Lots of our labor, and food)
This was a very sad wake-up call. Our great Farmer's Market Customers are apparently the exception rather than a norm. Even with all the mainstream "Green" drum-beating, people still aren't making any real changes. They wanted nasty industrial burgers from the trailer 3 stalls down. (Which we had no idea would be there, the chamber of commerce organizer did not have the decency to tell us, despite knowing the gamble we were taking and being familiar with our product) They wanted yucky smelling chicken and rice bowls with mass-produced MSG sauces from 5 gallon buckets.
We will shut down GreenGo Food before we will serve thoughtless, industrial, cheap food. It's wrong on so many levels. We are operating a values-driven business. Will we make it? We're not sure.

Plenty

An action-packed week in GreenGo Land. We looked at our dream farm in Enumclaw, it is a sweet, huge 1902 farm house with a green house and perfect set-up for animals and a sustainable little farm. Also a perfect room adjacent to the green house for a kitchen. As of this moment, we can't swing it. BUT, we are building momentum...
Sunday, after market, we did a guest cooking demo. with Alisa Smith & J.B. Mackinnon, the authors of the book Plenty. We really enjoyed the book and the opportunity to spontaneously whip up some simple, local good food.
We are excited to be serving herbs and flowers from our garden in the markets this week! Rosemary, Thyme, Lavender, chives, Nasturtiums, mint, Bachelor Buttons, Dill....
COLUMBIA CITY and NFMA, we really, really, really appreciate you! This week again the peeps in Columbia City blew us away with super support! We really would not be making this fledgling business fly without you! To the hard-working market managers who Make the markets happen, thank you for being organized and promoting the markets. Thanks farmers and co-vendors for providing great food!

Weekly Rhythm of cheese

Each market has some of my favorite cheese. Cheese is comfort for me. These are my precious treats that I savor all week long with seeded baguette and fresh goodies from the garden. Wednesday we look forward to chevre and spring cheese from Pt. Madison. Thurs. is so exciting because we get Seastack from our stall neighbors at Mt. Townsend. Thanks Cheese makers!
An ultra special thanks to Rick and Lora Lea of Quillisascut cheese andQuillisascut school of the Domestic Arts. (Farm School) We've had the good fortune of attending classes with them, hanging out with the goats and experiencing great shifts of perspective and awareness . I'd love to tell you about how your life will never be the same, but I'll just say You should go there. Go milk goats and make cheese, harvest dinner, learn to preserve produce like people have since the beginning, discover a new respect for ...Everything.

What keeps us going

We have so many blessings...we are grateful for all of them. When we struggle, we need to remind ourselves that "Pain is weakness leaving the body"
Here are a few great things from the past week..
1.Rebekah Denn from the PI gave us a super shout out which we didn't even see until someone pointed it out to us! Thanks Rebekah!
2.Stevens Hospital has given us financial assistance for 2 ER visits which were big heavy bills looming over us! Thanks to the good folks at Stevens!
3.The great folks in Columbia City supported us in a huge way yesterday, and now we will make our rent! Thanks Columbia City!
4.Dylan's mom has saved strawberry plants for many years, and we have moved them several times and they are very hardy, great producers. Last night after the rain, I "had" to go harvest berries so they didn't get ruined. Our dog loves the rejects. Thanks MaryDell and old strawberry plants!

It ain't easy

I've often wondered why any respectable culinary professional would buy food from "Big generic foodservice supplier x,y, or z". We have so many great local producers here in the Seattle area.
The answer I've realized, is simple....It's fast and easy.
We spend many hours hunting down the finest local goods from our small local farmers. During our Sunday market we take time from our stand to look around and see what looks good and affordable, and we brainstorm a sauce for the upcoming week. Then we go around and get 10 pounds of Zucchini from Bautista and line up 6 pounds of greens from Growing WA, some onions here, snap peas there. Then we order buns from 2 different bakeries, we buy cheddar cheese retail for our burgers because we insist that it be local and hormone-free....... In short, we seem to be lacking in efficiency, but we're working on it, and we're doing what we feel is the right thing. It feels really good to spread love around to lots of small people doing good work.
But then we see that lots of people don't care, they're happy to gobble nasty preserved, processed, factory farmed particle meat hot dogs from who knows where, and I wonder, "Is it worth it? or are we just deluding ourselves and making things harder than necessary?"